ABSTRACT
Hamlet has long been regarded as the iconic early modern tragedy. More than any other, it was also an interplay between growing audience sophistication in understanding plot and the need to represent a hero as “heroic.” The representation of Hamlet's knowledge was problematic: if Hamlet can be thought to understand the conventions of plot at least as well as his audiences, why proceed to his certain death? The central characters of New Comedy, more explicitly invested in the understanding of “plot,” would evade destruction and escape, but they would not be “heroic” and Hamlet would not be a tragedy. The play resolved this conundrum through a variety of misdirections, prevarications, and “existential” reflections resulting from the necessity not to act before the end of the play. With respect to knowledge, Hamlet, however, was a kind of story that could only be told once. As a tragedy, it defined the heroically individuated subject but destroyed the possibility of further “heroic” developments.
